To: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Dear High Commissioner,
Ref: Testimony for Cuban Good Record on Human rights
I am writing on behalf of Kenya – Cuba Frindship Society (KCFS), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and also as a former Member of Parliament of Kenya who served in the Parliamentary Committee for Defence and Foreign Affairs, 2003 – 2007. In these capacities I visited Cuba three times and while there travelled in several places and met many people officially, in various institutions and in the streets. In Kenya I have hosted many ordinary Cubans. Again, as one of the persons who was in the forefront in the struggle against dictatorship and for democracy and human rights in Kenya, I have suffered arrest, torture, detention, imprisonment and exile. That is why I am a committed activist of democracy and human rights and while in Cuba, I always took particular interest in how the people of the country live.
I therefore authoritatively testify that in Cuba, democracy and human rights are not abstract concepts that benefit only the class of the few rich while hoodwinking the oppressed and exploited class of the majority. Democracy and human rights in socialist Cuba are part and parcel of real life in theory and practice. The Cuban Revolution freed, saved and strengthened the Cuban nation. The Cuban people broke the yoke of dependency, institutional racism, women’s discrimination, nepotism, political corruption, murders and political disappearances, illiteracy, chronic unemployment, insalubrity, ideological domination, imposition of pseudo-cultural patrons which are alien to it, as well as of hunger and misery.
After bitter experiences with neo-colonial capitalism, the Cuban people struggled for social and national liberation that succeeded in 1959 and initiated the road of establishing socialism. Since then, the courageous and educated people of the Island nation have continued to build socialism while standing firmly with their leaders in defending their revolution from imperialism led by the USA. Socialism in Cuba is not imposed upon the people by the leaders but is a popular political, economic, social, cultural and ideological system consciously chosen and sustained by the citizens of the country of all walks of life. It is a faithful expression of the will of the Cuban people and nation in the exercise of their legitimate right to self-determination.
In fact, Cuba continues to prove to the world that it is not true that democracy can only take the form of multipartism and the content of capitalism. The one party democracy in Cuba is more participatory and real than that found in capitalist countries. For it is based on a society based on equality and social justice. Every citizen is not only subject of the political power, but also beneficiary and co-owner of the patrimony, the riches and the nation’s fundamental means of production. Every citizen has access to the basic services such as education, health, social assistance and security without any kind of discrimination.
Finally, the brutal and unjust economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed against Cuba by the United States of America is not only a gross violation of the democratic and human rights of the Cuban people, but also a crime against humanity. The blockade that has not succeeded in making the Cuban people abandon their socialist way of life must be brought to an end in the name of democracy and human rights.
Sincerely yours,
Mwandawiro Mghanga, Chairman SDP, Chairman KCFS
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